Tag: books

So, What’s Tea?

I take a slow, measured sip of my coffee, savoring both the drink and the moment before exhaling softly.

“Now that you have your mug and are snug like a bug in a rug, here’s what I’ve been up to lately…”

February has been full, starting with Hubby and I celebrating our fifteenth marriage anniversary on 2/17.

Most recently, we also celebrated the first anniversary of releasing my first nonfiction history book, Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School, which came out on February 24, 2024. For those of you who know, I usually write historical fiction, so this was my first time doing nonfiction.

This first year has been a blessing, and the support has been monumental. So far, we’ve been placed in four bookstores and one school and have sold hundreds of copies.

Book Signing and Meet and Greet | 2/8/25 | Medu Bookstore, Greenbriar Mall, Atlanta

For reference, I am a self-published, independent author without a massive crew behind me. I am not affiliated with any huge publishing firms or financed by any organization. Indie authors work hard but receive only a fraction of the visibility that a major publisher would provide. Thus, seeing our hard work pay off is extremely special.

I am drafting a separate post detailing the three things I did that set this book apart, which I will post later.

Before I tell you the other thing, let me refill your cup. There you go.

Another thing you should know is that today, just a few days after our bookversary, Tabitha Brown reposted a Black History video I did some weeks ago on the Safe Bus Company. Instagram and Facebook are going bananas, chile.

As a reserved and introverted person, this is a lot. However, I am humbled and thankful for the opportunity to reach many new people who are passionate about restoring the Black Historical Truth.

Finally, I have packed my bags and jumped on the Substack bandwagon. However, what I am sharing over there is a bit different. I want to lean more into my story and build deeper connections this year.

I have decided to start with what it’s like living with a steel plate in my thigh. Below is a description of my publication series and a link to follow me if you want to learn more.

Thanks so much for spending this time with me! You can leave your cup on the table. I’ll get that. Don’t forget that your shoes are by the door and your coat is hanging up in the closet!

Substack Info:

I Wasn’t Built to Break

“I Wasn’t Built to Break” is an intimate, behind-the-scenes journey into life with a steel plate inside my body. This series takes you through the pivotal moments that shaped me—from my early upbringing to the life-altering accident that nearly took everything when I was hit by a car. With raw honesty, I share the physical and emotional battles of recovery and what it truly means to rebuild a life that was almost lost.

Subscribe to read my articles! The first one is free and available now.

https://yecheilyah.substack.com/

The next meet-up is tomorrow, 2/28! See you soon.

Ways to Connect with Readers Outside of Social Media

Social media is a necessary tool for connecting in today’s world and it is a must for all businesses to have a social media presence in some capacity.

There are people whose entire livelihoods are built into their social media accounts. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and now Threads have become creator economies where high performing content gets you paid.

But what happens if you are hacked, the app malfunctions, or in the case of TikTok, the app is banned? Now all that work you’ve done and all those people you connected with are gone in an instant.

That’s why I believe authors should focus as much energy into building their own communities.

Community Membership Website

Outside of meeting up with people in person, community membership platforms are the next best thing. I am a member of a few, and I love that the person has their own social app, which they control. There are paid membership sites like Mighty Networks and Skool, and free ones like Discord. The only reason I don’t have one of my own is because I am already managing so many websites, including this blog. Otherwise, I would definitely consider it.

Blogging

This blog has helped me tremendously in my work, and Imma stick beside her.

Email List

By email list, I do not necessarily mean an author newsletter that reads like an ad. These newsletters usually have updates on the author’s latest books and events and usually go out once a month or so. (Pretty much whenever the author has a new book out.)

However, most author newsletters are boring, long, and cluttered with too many images.

The emails I am talking about are where the author speaks to their readers like friends. They might share thoughts on what’s happening in the world lately, how they feel, or offer an inspiring story. They might also throw in an update, but not so many that it becomes a billboard for their books. These emails might come out several times a month, and readers are okay with them because they are fun and inviting.

These emails are usually simple and sent using third-party providers like Mailerlite or Mailchimp. They give people the option to unsubscribe if they want, which is kinda legal. If you are sending out mass spammy marketing emails with no way for people to unsubscribe, you are breaking privacy laws.

Text List

By text list, I mean a professional text line for your business, not your personal number. This can be used to offer short, quick updates, alerts for sales, or an inspiring quote. Personally, I don’t have a text line, nor do I want one, but it is an option. Many businesses use them and do well.

In-Person Meet-Ups

This one is pretty self-explanatory. In person meetings, workshops, and events will always provide a special kind of value you won’t find online and I don’t think we should neglect them. Zoom meetings can also be a great way for meeting up to see people face to face.

As for socials, remember to back up your content, download your data, and save viral moments like videos you might want to repurpose later!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

The Stella Series: Meet the Family

As mentioned, I am reviving the Stella series with a fourth book! For those who have not read the first three books, I’ll share excerpts, nuggets, and tidbits as we prepare for the fourth installment. Today, we are refamiliarizing ourselves with some of the family. Enjoy!

Stella May

Born in 1845, Stella is the daughter of a Black woman named Deborah on Paul Saddler’s Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. From a young age, she can remember running through cotton fields and being loved by her family. To young Stella, life is simple and fun. She eats sweet cakes, plays with her friend Carla, and helps the grownups by carrying buckets of water to the field. Stella discovers she is a slave for the first time after Deborah’s unexplained death. Now, she learns the hard way the difference between slavery and freedom.

Solomon Curtis May

Solomon has no speaking roles, but his existence is essential for the family timeline. Solomon Curtis May is Stella’s only son, born in the fall of 1870 after she was sexually assaulted by the husband of her mistress. Solomon falls in love with a white woman and marries her after inheriting land outside Chicago. They have four girls: Deborah, named for his grandmother, Judith, Rebecca, and Sara.

Judith May

Solomon’s daughter Judith married a Black man and gave birth to a baby girl she named Stella after her grandmother. However, after enduring much teasing and discrimination for her mixed features, Judith’s daughter copes with this trauma by denying part of her ancestry. She changes her name from Stella to Sidney McNair and passes for white. After marrying a white man and having his children, Sidney lives her life on the other side of the color line.

Sidney McNair

Her aunt Sara influenced Sidney to pass for white and learn to enjoy her privileges. Sidney marries a wealthy white man named Clarence McNair, and they have four children: Edward, Karen, Joseph, and Glenda, whom they raise as white.

However, when she finally reveals the truth to her adult children in 1979, the shock of their real identity is a betrayal that stretches across generations.

Karen and Noah

Sidney’s daughter Karen McNair falls in love with a young Black man named Noah Daniels. He is a leading member of the Black Panther Party and thinks he’s dating a white girl. At this time, Karen also does not know that she is mixed race, although she has many more African American features than her siblings. The couple endures many trials because of their perceived interracial union. Together, they have a son, Noah Jr, who has a much more significant role as an adult in book four.

Edward McNair

Of all Sidney’s children, her sons are the most conflicted by their mother’s betrayal. Carrying many characteristics of his father, Clarence, Edward has not only lived his life as a white man but has also enjoyed the privileges of doing so and cannot come to grips with his new reality. In brief, Edward does not want to be Black, and his daughter, Cynthia, does not yet know about her true identity because of her father’s secrets.

However, although he appears to reject his heritage, something in Edward’s subconscious won’t allow him to completely forget it. We see this when he names his youngest son after his great-grandfather, Solomon.

Joseph McNair

Joseph is also conflicted about his mother’s decisions, but goes in another direction. Still under the illusion that he is just a white boy, he nevertheless feels sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fights for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s.

Unlike Edward, Joseph wishes he were Black. He grew up to marry a Black woman named Fae, and together, they have two children, a boy named Michael and a girl named Tanya.

Introducing Tanya and Michael…

Born in the early 90s, Tanya and Michael are the children of Joseph and Fae and are young adults in the early 2000s. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.

In book three, they are small children, but in book four, they are young adults. In his part, we weave together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken.

Get Started on The Stella Trilogy!

Book Four: Joseph’s Children

(Working Title)

(WIP/Coming Soon)

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at chapter one of book four!

How Blogging Is Good Practice for Book Publishing

Disclaimer: I do not think blogging is for everyone. These articles are here to help guide and encourage you to discover your own systems and practices, as each person’s journey is and will be different.

Three of my books were conceived through blogging: I am Soul, The Women with Blue Eyes, and Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School.

Let me be clear: I did not start this blog to write these books.

I started this blog for some other reason, and in the process of being creative, I wrote about these topics until they culminated into whole books.

After three years of writing poetry dedicated to Black people and Black womanhood, I compiled those poems into a book called I am Soul.

After sharing excerpts from an exciting short story out of my wheelhouse but fun to write, it eventually culminated into an urban fantasy novel.

After writing Black History articles every Friday for Black History Month that went beyond February, the project culminated in a full-length volume people can now enjoy anytime they pick up the book instead of waiting for Friday.

I hope you see where I am going with this.

In the same way that journaling can help us to organize our thoughts, writing about your area of expertise on a blog can be good practice for book publishing.

Posting content on social media and a blog is a form of publishing. Whenever you hit that post button on a blog article or a Facebook post, you are publishing content. Here are two powerful ways it helps to prepare you to write a book.

It Helps You to Get Used to Writing Publicly

When writers publish books, they open themselves to be judged, not just praised. When you post content online, you engage in a similar vulnerability. Your thoughts are now live for everyone to see, critique, or admire. This is similar to what happens each time an author publishes a book. Writing on a blog or posting to social media helps you to get used to hearing feedback about your writing.

It Helps You to Build an Audience / Readership

One of the significant issues new self-published authors face is publishing books with no readership. While established authors like Ashley Antoinette can pop out with a new book and surprise readers, new authors may have a hard time doing the same because they don’t have the audience for it to be successful. They can publish books on a whim, but they also run the risk of people not buying them. Blogging can help with that.

While practicing how to write publicly, you also build up a tribe of readers who like what you write! You attract people who enjoy the same things you do, not just with writing but with life. You might all like to travel, garden, or camp. You might all be married, single, or divorced. You might all be business owners, work a job you love, or retired.

These genuine connections help build bridges of commonality that eventually lead to mutual support systems. You also get instant feedback that will help you test-drive your story idea.

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

The Stella Series Continues

I published the first book in the Stella Trilogy in 2015 and revised it in 2020. I have been working on a part four recently, and I am excited to continue this family’s story.

If you have not read the series, I highly recommend it in preparation for the next part. (If you read these books from 2015 to 2016, you are advised to read the revised editions with the alternate ending!)

Like the others, it will be a historical fiction novella or short novel.

When Cynthia McNair’s grandmother overhears her and her boyfriend joking about Blacks in a derogatory way, she has a story. Born in 1845, Stella Mae was an enslaved woman on the Saddler Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. Forced to stay on the plantation after Emancipation, she endures much abuse and revelation. She eventually gives birth to an only son, whom she names Solomon Curtis Mae. Stella’s story takes place in book one, Between Slavery and Freedom.

Solomon was given land by the same enslaver who freed him and Stella. As a man, Solomon married a white woman, and they had four girls: Deborah, Rebecca, Judith, and Sara.

Solomon’s daughter Judith gave birth to a baby girl named after her grandmother because they looked so much alike. However, this Stella did not take pride in who she was and lived her life as a white woman and raised her children as white. We watch her struggle from delusion to acceptance during the Jim Crow era as she navigates being married to a racist white man who doesn’t even know his wife is Black. Stella has even changed her name to Sidney McNair. Her story takes place in the second book, Beyond the Colored Line.

Sidney McNair, formerly Stella, gave birth to four children: Edward, Karen, Jospeh, and Glenda. Edward is Cynthia’s father.

Because she raised them as white, Sidney’s children did not know about their African ancestry until 1979. The person most conflicted about this was Joseph, who felt sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fought for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s. His story takes place in the third book, The Road to Freedom. In book three, we learn that Joseph married a Black woman named Fae, and they had two children, Tanya and Micheal.

Joseph’s Children: Book Four in the Stella Series (WIP)

Book Four unfolds in 2008. Tanya is now eighteen, her confidence growing as she steps into adulthood with fire in her heart and ambition in her eyes. Her sixteen-year-old younger brother Michael wrestles with the same questions of identity and purpose that once drove their father to leave home in search of answers nearly half a century earlier.

Against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic presidency, the heartbreak of Trayvon Martin’s murder, and the rise of Black Lives Matter, Joseph’s children navigate a new era. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.

The story weaves together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken, binding the present to the past.

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at chapter one!

Are You REALLY Promoting Your Book?

Are you really promoting your self-published book?

Or does it just look and feel like you are promoting your book?

  • If you are only telling people you wrote a book, but you are not telling them what the book is about, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only show us the cover of the book but do not educate us about the content and core message, you are not really promoting your book.
  • If you only post Amazon links to social media but do not discuss the book and what we can learn from it, you are not really promoting your book.

These things can be a part of book promotion. Still, alone, they do nothing to generate enough interest in people to want to buy the book, and that is what book promotion is:

A culmination of your activities and strategies to create awareness and generate interest in your book.

This includes but is not limited to:

Advertising: Paid Ads (or just ads in general), digital or print material, website or landing page, etc.

Publicity: Interviews, book reviews, media coverage, guest blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Social Media: Building engagement with readers through entertainment and educational content using any of the many social media platforms. Blogging can also fall under this and is a powerful tool for community.

Events: Conferences, Author Talks, Book Signings, Book Fairs

The purpose is to create enough buzz to interest readers to purchase the book.

  • Anytime you share a review from someone who reads your book, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you create content (graphics, excerpts, videos, etc) that educates or entertains people about your book’s message (nonfiction), characters, or plot (fiction), you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you talk about the book on a podcast or in an interview, you ARE promoting your book.
  • Anytime you share your journey and what it was like writing the book, you ARE promoting it.
  • Anytime you write on a topic that is relatable to the things we can find in your book, believe it or not, you ARE also promoting the book.

We can do many things that look like book promotion on the surface but are ineffective in raising awareness among our readers about the book’s topic and why it’s important to them.

But I hope this post gets you thinking about deeper ways to connect with your audience!

If this has helped you, let me know!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!

Tell Us What You Published Instead of How You Published

How often have you heard a traditionally published author say, “I’m a traditionally published author?”

They might say they are a published author but not a traditionally published one. That’s because there are millions of traditionally published authors.

In the same way, introducing yourself as a self-published author does nothing to help the person understand what you write.

It is not bad to call yourself a self-published author or to be proud of that. However, since many self-publishers have smaller budgets, we often desperately identify how we published instead of what we published to get people to take a chance on our books. But this strategy does not work well.

When I pitch schools and bookstores to carry my book, I rarely introduce myself as a self-published author. They will already know this when they look up my ISBN.

Instead, I discuss the book and why it is a good fit for their audience.

Instead of telling people, “I’m a self-published author,” and pushing your book in their face, identify your genre, book, and how it serves your target audience.

You can do this in one sentence:

Original: “I am a self-published author of three books.”

Revised: “I am the author of The Stella Trilogy, a Historical Fiction series that explores African American History, civil rights, and the struggles of Blacks in America.”

I hope this helps someone!

Click here for more Indie Author Basics to encourage you through the Self-Publishing / Indie Author Process!